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Writer’s block. Blogger’s block. Podcasting block. Content creation block. We all get it. And now, more than ever, it seems it is easier to get. Just five years ago, there wasn’t as much easily accessible tools in order to create the variety of content that there is today. It’s amazingly awesome and completely overwhelming at the same time. I believe we all want to create something on some level. Everyone has different skills and everyone can create. The question is what, and then how do you get it out into the world?

How do you solve writers block that can creep up and stay for a few days, a few weeks, or even a few months? How you do escape the funk that you are in and get back to using your imagination and creating something valuable that someone, somewhere in the world, will find incredibly useful. It could even change that person’s life! Here are 4 ways to free your mind from whatever roadblock stands in your way, no matter the medium you prefer to create in.

Turn off the Internet when you want to create. We are inundated with information overload nearly every waking minute of every day- if we allow ourselves.

Action: Take control and turn off your wi-fi to better help you focus.

Set a block of time on your calendar. With our days packed to the hilt with work, meetings, and activities, it’s a wonder any chores or side projects get accomplished. Maybe that is why so many projects go unfinished.

Action: By setting a block of time in your calendar, you are telling yourself to stop from the everyday madness and work on that project you have been meaning to get started or completed: a book, a podcast, a website, a simple blog post, whatever it is.

Take advantage of the ‘Focus’ feature in your writing app. If your project involves writing and you easily get distracted, turn the ‘focus’ button on in Word, or use iA Writer (Mac only).

Action: This creates a simple white page so you can focus on the text you create and not get flustered on how the type looks, what should be formatted, etc. It allows you to focus on what really matters- the content.

Take advantage of content idea lists from top influencers in your niche. If you do a google search for content ideas, you will find hundreds of posts listing hundreds of topics. Find a hundred or two, and use it as your guide to write your articles, conduct your research, or as inspiration for some other type of product.

Action: Make it a goal to write one post a day from the list. By the end of 100 days, you’d have 100 posts. That’s a lot of content. What if you wrote two posts a day? You’d have a queue of 50 days (almost 2 months!) of quality posts. What could you then accomplish in those 50 days?

How do you handle writers block? Do you have any other tips to help overcome writers block? Leave a comment and let me know.

Our lives are inundated with additional things to do, places to be, social networks to join. There doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to keep up with all of the new, let alone maintain your daily life. That isn’t your full story.

What happens between the hours of 5am and 7am (or whatever works)? You can have a productive morning, working towards your goals.

On top of trying to keep up with the Jones’, there is the psychological aspect of it all as well: FOMO or, Fear of Missing Out. Similar to YOLO, or, You Only Live Once. Both can play mind games with you, causing you to try and do more with less, thus becoming overall less productive, less efficient, and down in the dumps. Your story isn’t finished.

Take Control by Having a Productive Morning

Most people get up just early enough to get ready and get to work or school. But what if you got up and gave yourself an extra hour or two in the morning, before school, before work, before the onslaught of emails, to-do lists, and emergencies take over your day to focus on your passions? What would your morning look like? How would you utilize those two hours? Here are the steps to take back your morning, become super productive, and achieve your goals, all while indulging in your passion. Sounds pretty awesome, yeah?

Step 1: Block off the time in your calendar.

Whatever calendar app you use, block off those two hours. They are yours and yours only. Make it a priority.

Step 2: Figure Out What you want to Accomplish First

Do you want to read more books?

Write more content?

Record a podcast?

Connect with others on social media?

Write a book?

Step 3: Set a Measurable Goal against a Timeline

Goals are fantastic, but they are even more effective if they have a timeline and deadline attached.

25 books by 31 December

2 articles a day; 10 articles a week

10, 30 minute episodes 1 day/week.

Grow followers to X over 90 days

Write 2,500 words a day for 20 days to reach 50,000 words.

For example, you could set a goal of writing two blog posts per morning session for 8 weeks. Assuming you write 2 blog posts each morning, 5 days a week, at the end of 8 weeks, you would have 80 blog posts written. Or what if you recorded two podcasts per morning?

How would this change your life? I challenge you to take a 30-day challenge, where you commit to a goal and work through it everyday. Leave a comment and let me know what your goal is. I’ll hold you accountable.

Social Media (SM) strategy has become critical to businesses of all sizes as a prominent part of marketing. While lots of businesses spend time on SM, not all have a strategy or plan to measure if they are getting an return on investment (ROI) for their efforts. Here are four social media strategies you can implement to create a more engaging, active community.

Entertainment Strategy – You create fun, sticky and memorable content that allows them to associate the image of message to your brand or business

Engagement Strategy – Your purpose is to engage the community by recognizing their presence, contributions and inputs

Empowerment Strategy – A space and role is created and provided to your target community to play an active role in what you are doing.

Getting Started

To quickly get started, choose one of the four ‘E’ strategies from the list above. Tailor the strategy to the size of your organization and resources available. When starting out, choose one strategy, focus on it, track and measure it, and once it is successful and can be automated, focus on the next strategy.

Develop a Formal Process

The best way to create a process is to jump in and focus on refining later. Don’t worry about formal steps; take action. After a couple days or weeks, take a step back and look at the process that you go through to implement the strategy. Start by writing down each of the steps, detailing all of the sub-steps taken. Once all of the steps have been written down, begin to look for ways in which they can be eliminated or automated, reducing the total number of steps. The goal of this analysis is to have a final process that is easy to follow and that another employee can take on. The written guide becomes their back-check tool. The formal process or guidebook should be reviewed every six months, at minimum, to ensure that the strategy is still relevant.

Once the strategy is being executed and results are meeting expectations, hand it off to a team member and begin the next strategy.

Implement the Social Media Strategy Slowly Online

The norm online is to build fast and continually adapt and change. While this approach works with certain aspect of the web, your organizations’s social media strategy should allow for a slower build up over time. Once you have your strategy and have identified your market, you will need a fleet of platforms to leverage your brand to share your message.

Different types of platforms include the following:

Networking Tools – blogs, micro-blogs, social networks

Collaboration Tools – Wikis, social news, social bookmarking

Multimedia Tools – videos, podcasts, images, interactive content

Entertainment Tools – virtual worlds, online gaming

Take the time to strategically think through the different platforms you want your organization and brand to participate in. As your organization grows, hire others to help manage different social media profiles. Too many platforms at once can be overwhelming and ultimately lead to poor results.

The most important platform to your organization is your official website. This is the heart of your organization online. Every platform that is used to share your brand’s message should be linking back to your website with a strong Call To Action (CTA).

Tip: Always Track and Measure the Strategy

With all strategies, they should be formulated to allow for tracking and measuring. The data collected will guide you as you refine the strategy, finding what works best and what to discontinue. Without data, your efforts will go unnoticed and your ROI cannot be determined.